Extranet Evolution

Tender points

Reading the latest construction weeklies, Construction News has a column (not yet online) from Neil Jarrett of the Collaborative Working Centre explaining how collaborative working will address the problem of bid-rigging, advocating open book cost management (to give greater visibility of real costs and make it difficult for contractors to benefit from collusion) and frameworks (to build up long-term relationships, thereby eliminating cover-pricing scenarios). It's a good explanation of how more progressive approaches can help eliminate unfair practices.

However, among the serious debate about the ongoing OFT row, there are some lighter moments. The star contribution this week comes from The Foreman in (the new 'Executive' sized) Contract Journal, who quotes the late Humphrey Lyttelton, a wit renowned for his double entendres:

Talking about his fictional score keeper Samantha's encounter with a builder, Littelton [sic] once said: "She was pleased to see his tender won, but was startled when it suddenly grew to twice its size."

(The same page in the print edition also links to the top five web stories of the week, including 'OGC embarrassment at new logo'.)

Technorati tags: Construction News, Neil Jarrett, Collaborative Working Centre, bid-rigging, open book cost management, frameworks, OFT, The Foreman, Contract Journal, Humphrey Lyttelton, tender, OGC, logo

CTSpace website to launch shortly?

Changes afoot regarding the long overdue CTSpace website (see previous posts here and here), though the work doesn't yet appear to be complete (some pages appear just to be text-dumps from the old site; many don't have a CTSpace URL - just an IP address). Expect the new Sword-style site to be relaunched shortly.

Technorati tags: CTSpace, website, Sword

The Hard Way

Joint Aconex MD Leigh Jasper has been interviewed by Jodie O'Keefe for the April/May issue of Australian Anthill magazine (a magazine focused on fast-growth companies). The feature, The Hard Way (NB: intro only - subscription required; a subscriber and EE reader sent me a copy of the full text), says Aconex "now employs over 300 people servicing 4,950 projects in 65 countries" (including Romania).

Considering Aconex has still yet to conclude a lengthy legal dispute with one of its major shareholders, Leigh's comments on investors are perhaps more than a little ironic:

The best investor is an informed one

VCs can bring a lot, but we prefer to raise capital from private investors who add value, from the business community and the construction industry. They act as mentors and are aligned with our vision. We communicate openly with them and treat them like real partners in the business.

As I understand it, the dispute with Hawthorn Glen focuses on whether there was open communications and if Aconex treated them like real partners.

Technorati tags: Aconex, Leigh Jasper, Australian Anthill, legal dispute, VCs, Hawthorn Glen

Downsizing at Constructing Excellence?

I have just received a members e-bulletin from UK construction membership organisation Constructing Excellence that has set alarm bells ringing. Headed "Constructing Excellence announces restructuring", it says:

Constructing Excellence has announced an organisational restructure to enable a sharper focus on its core business of delivering value to its membership.

Over the last two years, Constructing Excellence has moved from its original Government grant funding to the leading industry membership body devoted to industry improvement. Throughout this transition period it has also won commercially-funded work and other government commissions. Following a review of the mission and objectives of the organisation, the Board of Constructing Excellence agreed that a clearer focus on membership was needed and that the emphasis of future work must be on our core business of performance measurement and knowledge sharing.

Chairman Bob White said: "At CE, we are committed to improving industry performance through working with our members who come from the entire built environment supply chain including clients. We have become increasingly aware during our transition period that performance measurement and demonstration is the vital ingredient to further industry improvement. However, it would be fair to say that, in our transition from government grant funding, some of the diversification into commercial areas such as ad hoc commissions or consultancy has proved an obstacle to focusing on our core mission."

Don Ward, Chief Executive of Constructing Excellence, added: "The starting point for our members is a conviction that integration and collaborative working is the foundation for industry change. Measurement and demonstration are how we best add value in this regard, and the restructure will enable us to deliver these better."

Having worked in several AEC organisations over the years that have "restructured", I think this means Constructing Excellence is going to be shedding staff (in my experience, such external announcements normally follow internal announcements, lots of one-to-one meetings between managers and staff, and shocked staff gatherings in nearby pubs after work). There is no mention of downsizing or redundancies, but I suspect people that staff who aren't involved with the core "performance measurement and demonstration" activities will shortly be looking for new posts - if they aren't already!

BIW Technologies has been a CE member since Design Build Foundation days and I am involved with several Constructing Excellence activities; for example: I sit on the Building and Estates Forum steering group, am a Collaborative Working Champion, have recently got involved with the CE sustainability group, helped negotiate the transition of the NCCTP into CE last August (yesterday's NCCTP meeting was facilitated by a CE staffer), and am speaking at some CE/ITCF-organised events next week (see previous post). As a result, I am now concerned about what the fall-out of this restructure might be on these groups and activities, and - at a more personal level - I am also worried about the potential impact of this restructure on CE people I have come to regard as good friends.

This news also comes as we mark the 10th anniversary of the Egan Report (post) - a seminal step that helped establish the need for organisations such as Constructing Excellence.

(PS: No news of the "restructure" on the unofficial CE blog.)

Technorati tags: Constructing Excellence, restructuring, Bob White, performance measurement, demonstration, collaborative working, downsizing, redundancies, BIW Technologies, Design Build Foundation, Building and Estates Forum, Collaborative Working Champion, sustainability, NCCTP, ITCF

RIBA CPD events

I am presenting at two events next week. On Wednesday morning, 21 May 2008, I will be in Knutsford, Cheshire talking about construction collaboration technologies to architects from the northwest group of the Royal Institute of British Architects - part of a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) event organised in conjunction with Constructing Excellence's IT Construction Forum (details). The following day, I will be in central Birmingham doing a similar event for the RIBA's West Midlands group (details). At both events, my fellow speaker will be Rory Vance from CADSmart.

I am looking forward to both events, but have a little trepidation borne out of past seminar experience - architects (along with other designers) can be among the most vocal critics of web-based technologies. This is sometimes not surprising. For a start, many architects find themselves having to use several different collaboration platforms (and so rarely become trully proficient in using any one of them); smaller architectural practices often have less than adequate internet connections for online applications so users can get frustrated about the time taken to upload/download drawings, etc; and architects often complain about the adequacy of online drawing viewing and mark-up tools (see November 2005 post).

Technorati tags: Knutsford, construction collaboration technologies, architects, Royal Institute of British Architects, CPD, Constructing Excellence, IT Construction Forum, Birmingham, RIBA

BuildingSMART 2008 conference programme revealed

The programme for the 2008 London international BuildingSMART conference has been published. The one-day event - enticingly (ha, ha!) entitled "The STAND-INN Route to Sustainability and Value for Money in Construction and FM using BIM/IFCs" - is to be held again at the RIBA in London, on Wednesday 25 June. The day includes:

• sessions on sustainability (with perspectives from Germany, Finland and UK)
• a BIMstorm event (BuildLondonLive [plus blog], following on from the LA event)
• break-out sessions including ones on standards, creating a market for sustainable buildings, life cycle costing, and contracts and insurance
• UK case studies (from BDP, ZBP and Davis Langdon, among others)
• Overseas case studies (some appear to be updates of the same projects presented in April last year)

The event sponsors appear to include Bentley, ZBP and Uniting Construction Information. I think this is the first time I've seen the UCI logo, so a launch must be imminent (as mentioned at the IT in Construction event), but it is long overdue: the various construction IT groups first started talking about it around two years ago (see September 2006 post). ICT is supposed to be a fast-moving industry - here, I think, the UCI has adopted the pace of change of the construction sector!

Technorati tags: BuildingSMART, conference, STAND-INN, Sustainability, Construction, FM, BIM/IFCs, RIBA, London, BIMstorm, Build London live, sustainable buildings, life cycle costing, contracts and insurance, Uniting Construction Information, UCI

ICT is key to cutting carbon emissions, says EU

Thanks to a post by ZDNet's Andrew Donoghue, I see that the European Union is to promote the use of ICT to improve energy efficiency throughout the economy, starting with buildings, lighting and the power grid. An EU press release dated 13 May 2008 says:

"... the most advanced computer servers consume the same amount of energy as a standard light bulb; if widely used they could offer potential energy savings of up to 70%.

... Research and rapid take-up of innovative energy efficient ICT solutions will be crucial to lowering emissions across the whole economy," said Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "There is a win-win situation in which ICT will promote the competitiveness of EU industry while leading the fight against climate change."

... ICTs, if directed to sustainable uses, could increase energy efficiency in all areas of the economy while continuing to account for 40% of Europe’s productivity growth....

The Commission will encourage the ICT sector, which at present accounts for 2% of global CO₂ emissions, to lead by example the drive towards carbon neutrality. This will be done by reinforcing research, development and deployment of components and systems, complemented by voluntary agreements, for example on green procurement. The real gains from green ICT will come from developing energy efficient ICT solutions that impact the other 98% of global emissions."

Last November, I submitted a paper arguing exactly this approach in response to the UK government's draft strategy for sustainable construction - having criticised the consultation paper for its almost complete ignorance of the role of ICT (see post). The analysis of responses was published by BERR at the end of February, and my contribution appears to have been noted (BIW, my employer, is listed among the respondents on p.44). Paragraph 18 on page 7 says:

Other key suggestions included widening the Strategy to include transport impacts, adopting carbon neutrality as an underlying principle, the role of SMEs, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), ethical sourcing of materials, targets for new non-domestic buildings and action to adapt to climate change.

The final strategy is due to be launched on 11 June, and it will be interesting to see if this includes ICT as an enabler, particularly in the light of the EU's encouraging stance on the issue.

Technorati tags: ZDNet, Andrew Donoghue, European Union, ICT, energy efficiency, sustainable uses, 2% of global CO2 emissions, carbon neutrality, green ICT, global emissions, UK, draft strategy for sustainable construction, BERR

Future of the NCCTP - update

Representatives of 4Projects, Aconex, BIW (me!), Business Collaborator, Causeway and Sarcophagus met today in the upstairs room of a pub (fittingly, perhaps, The Phoenix) in London's Victoria to discuss the future of the NCCTP, the UK construction collaboration technology providers association. It was a lively session, due in no small part to the talents of facilitator Canute Simpson, from Constructing Excellence, and covered a lot of ground in four hours (Asite sent apologies and CE's Karl Williams contributed on its behalf; Cadweb, once again, failed to respond in any way).

Initial opinions about the role and activities of the NCCTP varied from a somewhat extreme "website presence only" perspective right through to reinvigoration of the NCCTP technical standard and more proactive input from Constructing Excellence. So it was no surprise, perhaps, that the action plan fell somewhere in the middle.

While some members were dismissive of the value of the NCCTP's (still somewhat rudimentary) data exchange standard, others argued vigorously that such system interoperability was the core deliverable most desired by vendors' customers. As a result, renewed effort is to be applied to get all members' core applications to comply with the latest version of the import/export standard. A drive to market the NCCTP more internationally was agreed, along with some more specific marketing campaigns and a parallel campaign to capitalise upon the NCCTP's position within Constructing Excellence - after all, the UK AEC industry's main membership organisation concerned with promoting collaborative working.

The technical standard group is due to meet in the next month or so, with the main steering group scheduled to meet again in early July.

Technorati tags: 4Projects, Aconex, BIW Technologies, Business Collaborator, Causeway, Sarcophagus, NCCTP, UK, construction collaboration technology, Canute Simpson, Constructing Excellence, technical standard, interoperability

Software incompatability sours 2012 effort

The office copy of Contract Journal finally arrived today and 'The Foreman' writes about British professionals at Mace and Laing O'Rourke involved with the 2012 Olympics developments getting disgruntled with the money being spent on their American colleagues. He then adds:

Tempers have also flared about computer systems. My man said: "They are trying to impose US design software, which isn't compatible with any UK contractors." Have a nice day...

I think it was playwright George Bernard Shaw who claimed that "England and America are two countries divided by a common language." Sounds like this extends to computers too. Get the BuildingSMART interoperability boys on the case!

Technorati tags: Contract Journal, The Foreman, 2012 Olympics, Mace, Laing O’Rourke, computer systems, incompatibility, BuildingSmart, interoperability

Egan report 10 years on - survey

This year, 2008, is the tenth anniversary of the publication of Rethinking Construction (the "Egan Report"), and Constructing Excellence is conducting a survey to discover what benefits (if any) have been experienced as a result. Complete the survey here.

Technorati tags: Rethinking Construction, Egan Report, Constructing Excellence, survey